Crash Mapping Project Puts Serious Traffic Injuries into Perspective in Albany

Albany has a higher percentage of serious traffic collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists than the county average, according to a new database created by UC Berkeley that was launched earlier this month and provides data on severe injuries and fatalities from collisions for the better part of the past decade.

Around 43 percent of serious injury and fatality crashes in Albany, from 2000 to 2008, included a pedestrian or cyclist, compared with 30 percent in Alameda County.

Forty percent of the serious traffic incidents in Albany were caused by drivers violating the pedestrian right-of-way or intoxicated drivers. Thirty percent were broadside crashes.

Though the percentage is significantly larger, the number of total serious accidents in Albany (30) is a tiny fraction of overall county-wide incidents (4,310) during this time period.

In nearby El Cerrito, about 47 percent of serious crashes included a pedestrian. Of overall serious crashes, 18 percent involved a violation of the pedestrian right-of-way.

The launch of the Transportation Injury Mapping System in April means free access to data about serious collisions from 2000 to 2008, with maps detailing the location, circumstances and level of injury for each traffic serious and fatal accident. (A map graphic is shown for minor wrecks, but no minor incidents are represented on the map or in the data sets at this time.)

Researchers at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center began the project in 2003 to make the data more accessible for analysis.

The data do not take into account factors such as higher concentrations of cyclists or pedestrians in certain areas, vehicle miles driven, road types or other things that might provide context to the numbers.

The data do show that, from 2000 to 2008, there was an average of 911 serious traffic crashes per year, or 2.5 per day, in the three East Bay counties of Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano.

Alameda County had the highest percentage of collisions involving pedestrians (22 percent); Contra Costa County had the largest percentage of serious motorcycle collisions (17 percent). 

In Alameda County, 20 percent of serious crashes (868 incidents) resulted in death, with the other 80 percent (3,442 incidents) involving severe injuries.

In all three counties, road deaths and significant injuries resulted from three main factors: unsafe speeds, driving under the influence and improper turning.

Of the three counties, Solano County had the highest number of crashes per 100,000 people, along with the highest percentage of fatalities (27 percent). Around 21 percent of serious crashes involved speeding, another 20 percent involved improper turning and 19 percent involved intoxicated drivers.

During the same period in Contra Costa County, 22 percent of these incidents involved alcohol or drugs, and 19 percent were caused by speeding. Fatalities occurred in 22 percent of the crashes.

In Alameda County, 20 percent involved speeding and 19 percent involved alcohol or drugs. Of the three counties, Alameda has the lowest percentage of crashes resulting in a fatality (20 percent).

Editor Emilie Raguso contributed to this report.

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, give editor Emilie Raguso a ring at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.